Learning From Defeat
by Thinkette
Summary: It was all about the numbers, and the numbers weren't pretty. The numbers were cruel. She knew it, he knew it, everyone did. Of all those numbers, in all that mess, she ended up being the lucky one. Mentions of rape.


In all of the countries, for every two shinobi, there is one kunoichi. Temari knew this, she memorized it. Statisically, for every one kunoichi, there was exactly 2.54 shinobi to counter them, for every two shinobi, there was exactly .7874 kunoichi. Less than a person, not even out of the decimal range.

Some claimed that it made competition fierce between the women, but that was not true. The truth was that there was absolutely NO competition in the kunoichi field, in fact, there were barely any kunoichi at all. They endure horrific training in Suna. Women, usually, were only women, delicate flowers who gave children and were bred for the sole purpose of populating. Temari was not.

Her father, the Kazakage, wanted, genuinely, to defend his village, and in doing so, sacrificed his children, wife, and livelihood. Temari was not originally intended to be a weapon of the Sand, but she became one when Kankuro was born, and it was indefinite when Gaara was brought into being.

Her fan cost a fortune, but at the time, she didn't know that. At the time, she didn't imagine it would be slicked with the blood of innocents and wrongdoers alike. At the time, she did not know that it stripped her of being a woman. For kunoichi are not women, they never have been. They are guardians, martyrs, but overall, they are pawns.

Pawns with breasts and pawns with ferocity and beauty. The girls and boys classes were divided in Suna. The boys received a certain kind of training that Temari could not tell anyone, for she never underwent it. The girls however, went through something akin to breakings or hazing. The teacher was a woman with thick skin, hair the color of ice, eyes the exact shade of hard packet dirt, and not a single sympathetic bone in her body.

"You are not allowed to fornicate. You're not here to have sex or find love, so if that's what you were looking for, forget it. There is no love in wars. There never will be. Get over it, you'll be used. Your assets will be hidden unless you're needed on a seduction mission. To ensure that you will not break this, we have developed emotional conditioning for all of you."

And at the time, it sounded okay, it didn't sound disgusting or nauseating, it was truth. On a battlefield, you do not share kisses. Temari watched, enthralled with the lessons of chakra control. But this lesson was awful. Not because she underwent it often, but she had to see it happen. Every girl that had hit her menstrual was taken away during reviews for quizzes and returned thirty minutes later, exactly, resembling ghosts more than girls, and hobbling back to their seats, wincing when they sat.

All of them were confused as those who had the training did not give any indication of what it was. Later, she was brought to the room with a handful of others who didn't have the treatment, all the girls who hadn't hit puberty yet. There were ten of them in total and nine men. They grabbed girls left and right, and suddenly, Temari was the only one still standing, screams were being heard, she was pinned to a wall, forced to watch as her friends, her fellow promising kunoichi were defiled.

"What you endured was sex." Our teacher said. "They will often use it against you. From now on, you will receive this training until you drop out from being a kunoichi, or you no longer show even a flicker of emotion on your face." Temari was not exempt from this treatment, but as royalty, she was given a chance to prepare herself for it. She did not know how, as she had no mother and no real family, but she endured it, and in an effort to never do it again, on the first try, she forced herself to be emotionless, she disconnected from her body.

It was dry and ugly, and she bled. They had a second test to see if she was under medication at the time, it was done at random so there was no preparation, and again, she simply disconnected. Her mind was flatline, and though her body screamed, she refused to utter sound, or even twitch. She stood afterward, and walked back to the room, limping and wanting to cry.

She did not, and she was one of exactly four girls that became kunoichi. Of those four girls, only two survived to pass the age of 23. Of those two, only one got married. Temari considered herself lucky in this respect. She felt foolish for thinking herself lucky when she went to the leaf, and every girl wanted children and wanted love. In Suna, of all the women who lived there, 35% got raped at least once, of them, 98% wished to be kunoichi, and of that, only 5% actually went on to become warriors of the Sand.

Sex was disgusting. That's what she thought for years after she graduated. On seduction missions, she was forced to have sex with exactly two men, aside from the rape she endured as a twelve year old. In total, Temari had sex with five men in her life. Two on missions, two from rape, and Shikamaru. It was odd, having sex for pleasure, and she didn't even know it was possible. Civilian girls spoke of it in the marketplaces, whispering behind their palms.

She would always feel queasy at the mentions of love and children, she didn't understand. She went on many missions with men, she had no qualms with that. She really couldn't fathom having intricate feelings for any of them, particularly Shikamaru. He was lazy, and leisurely, though smart, but good company. She was forced to face reality when she was on a mission with him once. It was simple, really, just a theft and they underwent it perfectly. On the trip back, they found a spring. After purifying some water with chakra, and having their canteens filled, they decided to bathe.

She stomped into the clearing to tell him he took forever, and was met with the sight of a man, not a boy, with his head bowed, hair in thick tendrils around his face. Water clung to his body in droplets and he wasn't broad and muscular but he was far from all bones. The water dipped down in a way so that just the tops of his hipbones were exposed, not indecent at all for ninja. He turned his head to her, not surprised in the least. His eyes were powerful, and it was not nighttime, so she could see them clearly, there was no moonlight. It was dusk, the sun was beginning to set and color the water orange and red, making it look like fire.

She would usually call it like blood, but she didn't like the idea of Shikamaru of all people in a pool of blood. Gulping, she saw how he tilted his head slightly, just like the deer he raised. She didn't understand what the heat between her thighs was about, why her heart was pumping. She did not have wide eyes, there was no flush, but his face broke into a smile. He waded over to her, just far enough to reach, but not enough to expose himself. He held one hand out, palm up.

And she would be sick usually, but she nodded, undid her hair and stripped. They were shinobi, they had seen several bodies before. The water was warm from the previous sun, and she knew it would be cold by the time she was done. But she still stepped into the water and waded over to him, where he kept the soap and washcloths. She did not bring her own, and he let her use his.

Even after he finished, he stayed, leaning against a tree that was a bit too close to the water's edge. She saw the roots of it dip into the liquid, and he simply stayed there, watching her with calm eyes. She was not erotic, she put on no show, she didn't need to. He, of all people, appreciated that simplicity. When she too finished, she leaned against the tree, right next to him, as if they were clothed, as if this was normal. He looked at her for a long while before cautiously reaching an arm out and hugging her to him.

All he did was give a single, sweet kiss to her neck, right beneath the jaw, and it was light but solid, and then he pulled away, walked off to camp. She couldn't focus much.

The first real affection she had ever received. She was 23. He was barely a man but they had known one another for about eight years. Four of which were spent with a strange underlying pressure between the two of them.

She went to him, as he was a good tactician, and knew when to retreat and wait for the opposing council. "What the hell was that?"

"One of the few things I wanted to do for years."

"We're shinobi."

"And it's awful. Asuma died alone, without his wife, without the woman he loved. He told me to learn from his mistakes, and I intend to do so."

"You're only 20, you're confused."

"I'm a genius, Temari. I have an IQ of exactly 253. I plan strategies, I decode messages, I am sought out for advice, and in all my few 20 years of living, I have never been so sure of anything."

They did not say much after that. It was the beginning of their relationship, and it was slow, painfully so. She didn't like touch, hated taijutsu, relied on the wind to defeat, to kill. She had blood on her hands, but she did not touch. At first, she learned to hug, then to kiss. She learned to be tender, how to touch a body that isn't a corpse. She smiled more, her brothers noticed it.

At 30, she got married. At 33, she had her first child, at 34, her second, and finally, at 37, her last. She never thought she'd get where she was.

In Suna, everything was buried under the sand. Ashes of their dead, old shoes, broken pieces of glass, trash, and most importantly, emotion. They wasted nothing, they didn't spend their time on idol things. Temari didn't know how to relax, but she found out how. She learned that she could not sing, not even lullabies. She thought she was a failure, as she couldn't sing her babies to sleep.

Shikamaru walked in and put one arm around her then, and sang. His voice was smooth, clean and clear, though rich and she wondered why he had a talent such as that if that voice only gave out commands and orders, screams and warnings. But there was a lot she did not know.

What she did know was that there are twice as many shinobi as kunoichi. Of the entire lot of them, only about 20% got married. And so, she considered herself lucky in that respect. Of the 20% that got married, only 70% of them had children. More often than not, they were boys. She had many teachers in her life, her academy sensei, her brothers, her squad sensei, Suna itself, Shikamaru, and her children.

She refused to bury them in the sand, to gloss their and her life over. So she left Suna, she raised her daughter in the lush climate of Konoha, she watched her grow as she did her sons. She never sang to them but she watched as Shikamaru did. She gave her daughter her own battle fan, she cleaned her hands of everything she had done and remembered when she first got that fan.

When she did not know it would be cleaned nightly of the blood it was slicked with, when she did not know that it would blow her into the life of the man she loved, and at that time, she thought that kunoichi did not love on a battlefield, but they loved every day.

They had to.

And so, she considered herself lucky in that aspect. She had plenty to give, love that had been locked in her heart for years as it was not allowed to be given freely. She loved her brothers, she loved her children, she loved her fan, she loved her husband, she loved so very, very much.

And so yes, she was lucky. After all, the numbers say it all.


End file.
